Gay Marriage in America- Persuasive Speech at Goshen College

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For those of you who don't know, Goshen College is a small college located in Goshen, Indiana(about 20 miles from where I live) with a heavy Mennonite influence. There are many Mennonite and Amish communities within a few miles of the campus. For this guy, to not only make this speech, but also openly admit he is homosexual, was very brave. There is a lot of religious oppression in this area, from the Catholics of St. Joseph county to the Amish and Mennonites of Elkhart and Kosciusko, it's very difficult to fathom same-sex marriages around here. I am shocked that this video exists, from my local region, and I am only just now seeing it for the first time.

As a Christian myself, it pisses me off the oppression the gay community is riddled with from the Church. Christ was a man that offered peace and love to everyone He encountered and urged us all to do the same. Condemning these men and women for their sexual orientation would have angered Jesus himself.

I support both, gay marriage, and religious freedom. There is no reason for the government to stand against gay marriage, other than from religious influence. A way to settle to differences would be to legalize gay marriage, but not federally require or force religious pastors/ministers to perform these ceremonies. You will have a large number of pastors denying their services to homosexual couples, but you will also have a large number of pastors who would be thrilled to offer their services. So as long as the government keeps its hand out of the church and their operations, I think an agreement could easily be met.

This is the tight rope of same sex marriage, you need to supply same sex couples with the same benefits and hetero couples but you also need to honor the church's right to free religion. Now where this gets difficult is you have voices in the church saying that legalizing same sex marriage violates their right of free religion, and you have voices coming from the homosexual community saying they should be allowed to marry in the church.
The fairest action would be to allow same sex couples access to the same benefits as hetero couples, but also allow the church to decide whether or not they agree to marry same sex couples in the church. Regardless of the way you go people will be unhappy and politicians would lose their seats but that's the nature of American politics.

That's exactly how it should be gone about, having certain people marry isn't infringing on others ability to practice their religion, as long as they aren't being forced to marry them. Lots of churches would marry same-sex couples voluntarily, we wouldn't need to force all churches to offer that service.

That's not how it works. Law should never have to bend over backwards to work around religion- it shouldn't give it a second thought either way. The gay marriage question is a human rights issue, not a religious one. After we legalize it, it is up to each individual church whether to give gay people a religious marriage, but legal marriage is through the state, NOT the church. It's very simple. Legalize gay marriage.

Okay I can see that we are but aren't on the same page here. What I mean by "needs to be worked around" is that many voters will be taking their religion to the ballot box on this matter, so we need to work around that so that isn't as big on an issue. I.E. driving the point home that this legislation only expands the benefits given to couples by state and federal sectors to same sex couples and in no way force them to marry same sex couples within the church. This is the best I can do so does this clear things up?